New Beers
There has never been a time like now: more breweries releasing more new beers than ever before. Here, in The Crafty Cuppa, and in our weekly newsletter, we'll bring you details – and, if we've sampled them, our honest, independent take – on as many of them as possible. Enjoy!
Stone & Wood Counter Culture: Edge Of The Earth IPA
Published August 29, 2022
Stone & Wood's Counter Culture series has flitted between flights of fancy and beers that might sit far from their core range in terms of concept and character yet are relatively sane by the standards of the wilder realms of today's beer world. Edge Of The Earth sounds like something from the former camp, but turns out to be more of the latter, its name a reference to Australia's southernmost state – or at least the hops that grow within the Derwent Valley. The brewers have chosen four of Hop… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Tasmanian IPA
- ABV
- 6.6%
- Stockists
-
Find stockists here
Hawkers Double Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout 2022 (and friends)
Published August 29, 2022
Thanks to a flurry of travel as we make up for lost time over the past few years, we're a little late jumping aboard the annual Hawkers imperial stout train. So why not just start at the end: with the denouement of the 2022 series? For the Double Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout the brewers did just that: aged their imperial stout in bourbon barrels, then emptied that liquid into fresh bourbon barrels and did it again. And guess what: it certainly has plenty of bourbon character, but not so much… Read more
Black
- Style
- Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stouts
- ABV
- 13.7% & 13.4% & 13.4%
Uraidla Brewery Enchanted Delirium
Published August 29, 2022
The relative and oscillating importance of core range beers versus limited releases has been one of the more fascinating elements of the beer industry to monitor over the past half decade, not least since COVID arrived on these shores. And here the brewers at Uraidla have decided to plough a furrow that sits somewhere between the two: Enchanted Delirium is their first seasonal pale ale, with a new one to be released every three months in place of a permanent pale ale offering. To launch the series,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Hazy Pale Ale
- ABV
- 5.0%
Deeds Brewing As You Wish & A Quiet Deed
Published August 29, 2022
One of the joys of raising kids is introducing them to the movies that were part of your own childhood. There's always the challenge of age appropriateness, especially when there's the best part of five years between one and two (it just means number two gets to grow up quicker). The most recent bout of nostalgia at Crafty Towers starred The Princess Bride, an occasion that's led to much, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." and associated sword-fighting… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Pale Ale & DIPA
- ABV
- 5.4% & 8.3%
Rocky Ridge's Froth Town 2022 Six
Published August 29, 2022
Each year, Perth’s popular Froth Town festival sees stacks of special beer releases. In 2022, it saw Rocky Ridge – who hosted the main stage – it was never going to be enough to put out just one new Froth Town frothy; instead the team from Jindong, in typical fashion, opted for half a dozen, initially tapped every hour on the hour at the festival and now available through their website and Busselton taphouse. Across the six releases, they cover an array of styles. For the hop heads, Bad Angles… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Various Styles
- ABV
- As Indicated
All Inn Brewing New School and Old School IPAs
Published August 28, 2022
I’m a sucker for a dual release, and this dynamic duo is All Inn’s first. I recommend you drink New School before Old School. Thematically it seems wrong, but flavour-wise it just makes sense. New School East Coast Hazy IPA has a translucent glow, and features an aroma that seems to be a chorus of fruity hops and fruity yeast esters singing in unison. The flavours are an integrated blend of peach, orange and mandarin, with a soft zesty bitterness eventually building up. There’s something quite… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- East & West Coast IPAs
- ABV
- 6.4% & 7.0%
Beerland Brewing Pretty Majestical NZ IPA
Published August 28, 2022
As a tribute to The Land of the Long White Cloud, Beerland have created a NZ IPA that's sure to take your tastebuds on a holiday. Pretty Majestical – a nod to Hunt For The Wilderpeople – has been brewed with an all-Kiwi hop lineup including, Wakatu, Rakau, Kohatu and the classic Nelson Sauvin, and a simple malt bill with just a touch of Carapils for colour and sweetness. Juicy hop characters flow from the glass with tropical fruit, lime and gooseberry leading the charge. The pine comes through… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- NZ IPA
- ABV
- 6.0%
- Stockists
-
And select WA stockists
More stockists...
Hawkers Party Starter Hazy Triple IPA
Published August 28, 2022
Hawkers first got this party started for one of Carwyn Cellars' Canvent boxes, and have decided it's time to get things going again as we head out of winter into spring 2022. If you didn't try Party Starter first time around, it's the sort of big ol' beer you'd expect such a pairing to put out for a special occasion: a hazy triple IPA topping 10 percent ABV and featuring a bit of a Who's Who? of killer US hops – Amarillo, Mosaic, Talus, Citra, Citra Cryo and Mosaic Cryo. Pouring with a light orange… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Hazy Triple IPA
- ABV
- 10.2%
Mr West x Bonehead Brewing x D&K Grocery Go Kinako
Published August 26, 2022
Each year for their birthday, Mr West take a moment to celebrate the other small businesses in Melbourne’s west. For their fifth, the Footscray outfit have teamed up with the nearby Japanese grocer D&K Asian Grocery and again, they’ve recruited Bonehead Brewing to join in on the birthday fun. Go Kinako is inspired by the Kinako Mochi balls D&K supplies, with those rice cakes a particular favourite amongst Mr West crew and GO being the word for five in Japanese. The nitro stout is made… Read more
Black
- Style
- Kinako Mochi Stout
- ABV
- 4.9%
Sauce Brewing Toasted Pineapple Strong XPA
Published August 26, 2022
If you’ve ever been to a Brazilian BBQ (churrascaria) there is a 100 percent chance you’ve enjoyed some caramelised rotisserie pineapple. It’s a dessert so tasty that if a New Zealander invented it we’d probably claim it for ourselves. Now Sauce have married these sickly sweet caramel flavours with an XPA, and not just any XPA: a strong XPA. Before I even have a chance to look at the colour, the sweet scent of candied pineapple jumps out of the glass and starts eating farofa in my nostrils… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Toasted Pineapple Strong XPA
- ABV
- 5.5%
One Drop Red Plum Sour & Melloe Yellow
Published August 26, 2022
When you are privileged enough to have the opportunity to taste a lot of different beers, occasionally a cool thing happens where one unlocks a strong memory association with something that happened decades ago. This kind of phenomenon is a well-studied area thought to be a byproduct of millennia of human evolution where it would be a great benefit to be able to easily remember which foods were nice and good and which foods would have you rueing the primitive state of indoor plumbing technology. I… Read more
Red
- Style
- Plum Berliner Weisse & Tropical Sour
- ABV
- 3.5% & 7.5%
Slipstream Brewing Co Vienna Lager
Published August 25, 2022
It’s no secret Slipstream love hops. They love making punchy IPAs, and experimenting with new varieties, and showcasing big flavours. But since they’re always talking about their passion for hops, it almost is a secret that they love exploring the world of lagers, too. These lagers are usually keg-only small batches at their venue, but this one has made it into tinnies. Slipstream’s Vienna Lager is paler than many other examples, pouring more of a gold than a deeper copper colour. The malt… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Vienna Lager
- ABV
- 5.0%
- Stockists
-
From the brewery
And online here
Swell Brewing Gizzy Pipe IPA
Published August 25, 2022
Another limited release from Swell means another guide to one of the world's stellar surf breaks. This time we venture to Poverty Bay in Gisborne where we meet Gizzy Pipe at Midway Beach. We're told this is a consistent break that provides sweet barrels in both directions – so how have the McLaren Vale brewers represented that in beer form? As a hazy NZ IPA featuring Nectaron, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin hops. Gizzy Pipe pours an incredibly light yellow straw colour with a cloudy appearance, and… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Hazy NZ IPA
- ABV
- 6.3%
Block 'n Tackle x Oldfield Cellars Ferrimans Peat Smoked Rye IPA
Published August 24, 2022
When you think of the kind of beers that should be popular on the NSW Central Coast, your mind probably goes to easy-drinking lagers and pale ales. Not so much to peat smoked rye ales. When Block ’n Tackle and Oldfield Cellars collaborated to brew Ferrymans in 2018, they were surprised how many people took to it. It wasn’t their first time teaming up to make an interesting beer – that was the previous year, with a lime and white pepper dark saison. But the powerful flavour of a peat smoked… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Peat Smoked Rye IPA
- ABV
- 6.0%
- Stockists
-
Block 'n Tackle Brewery
Dainton Beer D6
Published August 24, 2022
Fortunately for Dainton Beer’s sake, there are a lot of hops. Once again, to celebrate the anniversary of their Melbourne brewery and taproom opening they've brewed a beer in D6, with the annual NEIPA a fitting approach for a brewery that makes so many hoppy releases. But, as everyone knows, when you start a beer series you have to keep doing it until the end of time, so luckily, for the Dainton team, they should be safe to be going until at least the year 2192 before they run out of hops. The… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- NEIPA
- ABV
- 7.5%
Akasha Project The Chronic West Coast IIPA
Published August 24, 2022
It occurred to me while tasting Akasha’s latest release, The Chronic, that I was no longer certain what a standard double IPA is supposed to be? I started thinking about all of this because when I first tasted the beer, there was something about it that seemed so much more, for lack of a better word, modern about it. For a bloke that writes mostly about individual beers and their styles, I’m not sure I’ve read the BJCP entry for a double IPA in a very long time. I get there’s plenty of valid… Read more
Golden
- Style
- West Coast IIPA
- ABV
- 8.0%
Bonehead Brewing Regeneration & Faded Memories
Published August 23, 2022
IPA isn’t a style that stands still for very long with new hops, hop products and a million and one different prefixes (we might be exaggerating here) ensuring they’re always in a state of flux. You could say that, like The Doctor† in Dr Who, they’re constantly regenerating into a new look, with a new personality while still retaining who they are at heart, or hearts rather. Bonehead Brewing’s Regeneration is an English IPA that joins their Smells Like Pop Culture series, with the beer’s… Read more
Red
- Style
- English IPA
- ABV
- 5.3% & 7.5%
Slow Lane Barreljuice, Same But Different & The Time Is Rye
Published August 23, 2022
Another month in which the Slow Lane new release machine just keeps rolling on. I gotta be honest, I am worried that they’re going to run out of colour combinations for their cans soon. I mean, how many two colour combinations could there really be? One hundred? Two hundred? Are they going to have to invent new colours just to stay ahead of the game? That really seems like a lot of work for a small brewery. Maybe the Independent Brewers Association can look into lobbying the Federal Government… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Barrel-Aged Brett IPA, Hazy IPA & Barrel-Aged Dark Rye Sour
- ABV
- 6.5% & & 8.5%
Jervis Bay Brewing School Of Hops: Amarillo
Published August 22, 2022
A School of Hops?! I think we can thank our lucky stars that, in this instance at least, Jervis Bay are talking about a series of single hop pale ales, and not an educational facility built entirely out of hop bines. What’s the bloody structural integrity of a skinny little vine with a few flowers hanging about? There’s probably only a handful of building certifiers in this country who are cooked enough to sign off on such a ludicrous venture. Then what? Just teach kids the normal curriculum… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Single Hop Pale Ale
- ABV
- 5.1%
- Bitterness
- 30 IBU
Sobremesa Fermentary & Blendery High Tea
Published August 22, 2022
You can always trust Sobremesa Fermentary & Blendery to approach winter a little differently and High Tea is no exception. The beer was brewed as part of Carwyn Cellars’ Black Box, with the dark mild inspired by British pub ales and given a Sobremesa spin thanks to it being barrel-fermented with two strains of Brettanomyces, alongside an English ale yeast. Given Brettanomyces means "British yeast", surely plenty of dark milds have enjoyed a touch of Brett in years gone by and if… Read more
Black
- Style
- Dark Mild
- ABV
- 3.6%
